A Leased Line is an always-on, dedicated, fixed-bandwidth, symmetrical, fibre-optic internet connection.
What is a Leased Line Used for?
Businesses use Leased Lines to carry large amounts of data. Because a Leased Line is symmetrical i.e. the download speed is exactly the same as the upload speed, copying or downloading files to another building or website server is equally as fast. Whereas when using FTTC (more well known as Fibre broadband) your upload is not symmetrical and is shared among many other users.
- High Speed Business Internet Access
- Connecting two buildings or locations together
- Enable the use of Business VoIP Phone Systems
- Enable remote working with the use of a VPN
- High Capacity Public Guest WiFi Hot spots
What is the Advantages of a Leased Line?
There are many advantages associated with a leased line in comparison to Fibre Broadband (FTTC) or ADSL:
- Symmetrical Speeds (i.e. upload data at the same speed as you download)
- No contention (i.e. you don’t share your line bandwidth with another other business)
- You’re able to reliability host mail and web servers
- Connection doesn’t slow down at peak times
- 100% Service Level Agreement, service credits from the first second of downtime.
- Issues and problems are resolved within a 4 hour find and fix SLA window.
- Faster download and upload speeds (of up to 10Gbit/s)
What is the Disadvantages of a Leased Line?
When considering a Leased Line cost is a major factor, but the advantages far outweighs the disadvantages:
- Installation Lead-times (Can take up to 75 working days from order to activation)
- Monthly Cost (Leased Lines are considerably more expensive than Fibre Broadband, FTTC, FTTP and ADSL connections)
Leased Lines are Dedicated
Cost effective methods to connect to the internet such as Fibre Broadband (also known as FTTC) or ADSL share internet bandwidth with many users, whereas a leased line provides a dedicated internet connection. A dedicated connection means: no other business or individual shares your internet connection or bandwidth, it’s for your sole use.
Leased Lines are Symmetrical
Downloading information or data from the internet is usually fast using Fibre Broadband (FTTC) or ADSL however uploading data will take longer. This is because the upload speed is less than the download speed. However a Leased Line’s upload and download speed is the same, making a leased line symmetrical by definition.
What is a Leased Line typical speed?
Leased lines can deliver speeds from 10Mbit/s through to 10Gibit/s – It totally depends upon your requirements.
Leased Line Internet Connection
There are many functional uses for a leased line, however the most common is to provide a dedicated high speed connection to the internet.
What is a Leased Line Typical Costs?
The cost of a leased line connection depends upon a varying number of factors, the most common are:
- The length of the fibre optic cable required to deliver the connection to your business premises
- Fibre presence in the area
- The speed you require
- The length of contract you’re willing to sign
What happens when I place a Leased Line Order?
A feasibility study is carried out to ensure the leased line circuit can actually physically be delivered to your business premises, this involves checking what local fibre optic infrastructure is present in your area.
A leased line planner will then visit your business premises to carry out a site survey ascertaining where an NTE (Network Termination Equipment) can be installed along with a fibre optic junction box. During the site survey the planner will also inspect the route which the fibre optic cables will follow all the way to your property to a local point of presence (PoP).
During the site survey the leased line planner may have identified additional costs (also known as ECC or Excess Construction Charges), these charges are usually incurred because there isn’t fibre presence in the last mile to your business premises.
Once the site survey is complete you will be advised of any additional charges (Excess Construction Charges – ECCs) to provide the Leased Line circuit to your business premises. Usually the leased line connection provider has an allowance of £2,800 for any ECCs and any additional costs above this will have to be covered by the customer ordering the leased line.
If no excess construction charges have been identified or excess construction charges were identified but fall within the £2,800 allowance the Leased Line order will proceed to delivery. If excess construction charges were identified outside of the allowance (£2,800), the ordering customer has to approve the additional costs before the provide of the leased line proceeds into the delivery phase.
What is a Leased Line most likely to cost?
Exascale are able to provide a very competitive leased line quote, we believe our leased line costs are one of the lowest in the market.
